Leaders and Legacies Canadian leaders and leadership stories
Sometimes the biggest truths in politics come from across party lines. When the Honourable James Cowan, Liberal leader of the opposition in the Senate, bid farewell to Conservative Michael Meighen in the upper chamber, he captured the essence of Meighen perfectly in a single line:
“Senator Meighen has never stopped working, quite simply, to make Canada a better place.”
Although that was nearly two years ago, Meighen, 75, continues – as he has all his life – to make a meaningful difference.
Most recently, he has taken on the duties of chancellor of McGill University, one of the oldest and most distinguished of North American institutions. As he takes on this role and gets to see so many young people begin their own life journeys, it is worth remembering Meighen’s own life path.
Meighen is the grandson of former Prime Minister Arthur Meighen, who was Canada’s prime minister on two different occasions, in 1920-21 and again in 1926.
Meighen remembers his grandfather well, especially the long walks he would take with him when he visited his grandfather in Toronto in the 1950s.
They would walk from Castle Frank all the way to his office on Bay Street, a five kilometre trek which was a long journey for a young Meighen. But what the grandson has realized for some time now, as an adult, is that this time allowed them to connect about many things.
“He wanted to know what Shakespeare plays I had been studying and how my French was coming along. He liked to know that I was doing well in school,” Meighen told Leaders and Legacies in a previous interview.
Meighen’s own father, Theodore Meighen, was a well-known lawyer and philanthropist who established the T. R. Meighen Family Foundation in 1969.
As he grew up, Michael Meighen was inculcated from an early age into the idea of giving back to the community, just as his grandparents and parents had before him.
He earned his BA from McGill in 1960 and then went on to a distinguished career as a prominent lawyer, politician and a philanthropist. He is a member of the Bars of both Ontario and Quebec.
Since the late 1960s, Meighen was also prominent on the Canadian political landscape. He served as the national president of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada from 1974 until 1977.
From 1990 until his retirement two years ago, Meighen was an active senator who chaired many different committees. These included the Senate Standing Committee on Banking, Trade and Commerce, National Security and Defence Committee, and a subcommittee on Veterans Affairs. From 1985 to 1987, he acted as Co-legal Counsel on the Deschênes Commission of Inquiry on War Criminals.
Meighen has served on the boards of numerous public companies and not-for-profit organizations. He and his wife, Kelly, have numerous causes they support, including the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Cancer Care Ontario and the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research. Helping communities’ most underprivileged citizens has always been a focus for them. They are also strong supporters and patrons of the arts, such as the Stratford Festival.
Meighen also helped form the Meighen-Molson Professorship in Atlantic Salmon Research. This led to the establishment of the highly regarded Canadian Rivers Institute at the University of New Brunswick, dedicated to aquatic science.
As Leaders and Legacies turns one year old this month, I thought it only fitting to pay tribute to the man who was its earliest supporter. I floated an idea by Meighen more than a year ago, to create a news site that would be Canadian leadership and history focused, including community level leaders and former prime ministers. It would also take a keen interest in Indigenous Canada, and in education.
In an age where there is enough ‘gotcha’ journalism, Leaders and Legacies would instead presume to tell stories with an ‘appreciative inquiry’ lens. This involves asking thoughtful questions (but not fluffy questions), the kind that would inquire as to what is working, and why, and how to do more of it. It would endeavour to lift good ideas and good people up, through the strength of powerful questions.
Meighen understood the vision immediately and was an integral supporter of this vision.
Perhaps Senator Cowan, from the Liberal Party of Canada, said it best again when he paid tribute to Meighen in the upper chamber two years ago:
“Senator Meighen, I do not know how many Canadians take the time to think about the qualities that a good Canadian senator should possess — probably not many — but I believe that if they did they would come up with a list that is remarkably summed up in you. Dedication to your community, to your party and to your country — these are the qualities for which you have the admiration of us all.”
Indeed. We are fortunate to have people like Meighen among us, the kind of citizen who simply wants to make Canada a better place.
– Roderick Benns is the publisher of Leaders and Legacies and the author of several youth-oriented books on Canadian prime ministers, including the e-book Arthur Meighen: A Way With Words, with a foreword by Michael Meighen.
If you enjoyed this article you may wish to read Michael Meighen recalls the formidable man who was twice Canada’s Prime Minister.